STIRLING STUDIES 4: THE TALL NEOTENOUS OTHER HOMO SAPIENS

STIRLING STUDIES

B. Lukács

President of the Matter Evolution Subcommittee of the Geonomy Scientific Committee of HAS

CRIP RMKI, H-1525 Bp. 114, Pf. 49, Budapest, Hungary

lukacs@rmki.kfki.hu

ABSTRACT

S. M. Stirling is writing books in Alternate History. Besides the obvious evolutionary connections, these books suggest lots of interesting scientific or scholarly problems, some discussed in the books, some not. In his Lords of Creation cycle in an Alternate History very advanced aliens terraformed Venus  & Mars 200 My ago; this is PoD. But the terraformation does not influence Earth too much for a while, and in twentieth century AD still Stalin, Kennedy & de Gaulle are the political leaders. In the second part of these studies it seemed that the picture is self-consistent; but it was clear that the self-consistency should be checked on the second book as well, which deals with Mars. Also, there we concluded that the effective terrestrial PoD was 1932 AD; that is also checked here.

0. PROLOGUE

S. M. Stirling is producing a big variety of Alternative History sci-fi’s. Alternative History is a subclass of sci-fi’s, where the fantasy does not enjoy its unlimited freedom. In an ideal AH story only one event has other outcome than on our timeline (that is the PoD, Point of Divergence), especially an event which “might have happened as well otherwise”, by other words, where even now we do not know if the particular outcome was necessary or not. (Here I omit philosophical discussions of Free Will, determinism/indeterminism, the Everett Theory of Quantum Mechanical Measurement and such, for simplicity.) So at PoD one event has another outcome, and then the author continues the story, with as strict “causality” as possible. Of course the PoD acts then as an initial condition different than in Our TimeLine (OTL). Then the author elaborates this Alternative History.

Now, we do not yet know if such concurrent timelines can be realised “synchronously”, or not. (Against the a priori impossibility of the alternative see Everett’s famous paper [1].) But even this were impossible, the elaboration is edifying. Anyway, ifone believes in Free Will (this is religion-dependent, of course), one should think over the alternatives before any important decision.

The machinery can be demonstrated by means of, e.g., Poul Anderson’s works. In Eutopia [2] a modern (c. 1970 AD) Greek social researcher from a timeline where Alexander III of Macedon did not drink himself exactly into death but after some time recovered, so Aristotle did not have to leave the Lyceum  in 322 AD, can switch timelines, and explores one where Alexander did die prematurely, butthe Tours-Poitiers battle in 732 AD had an outcome opposite than in OTL. So the Frankish Kingdom became weaker, the Pippin-Charlemagne line could not substitute the Merovings, so in the next 200 years Dane Vikings & Magyars destroyed the Western Christian civilisation. In 1970 AD Danes can be found in Canada & Minnesota (Anderson’s state) and Magyars along the Mississippi (Dakoty). In another mininovel [3] Sulmanu-Assaridu King of Assyria took Jerusalem in 701 BC (this was the probable outcome; we still do not know what happened, but the Holy Bible is also not too definite). Then no Judaism from VII c. BC upward, so no Christianism either; the Roman Empire breaks down in a somewhat less dramatic way, in 1976 AD the Visigothic Kingdom is the strongest Mediterranean power, Mithraism is the strongest religion on Southwest, Mazdaism in Southeast, and the North is pagan. And again: Danes in Canada & Minnesota and Magyars in the Mississippi Basin.

S. M. Stirling works in the AH scheme. In one sequence (Lords of Creation [4], [5]) the PoD was 200 My in the past; a superhuman civilisation terraformed Venus & Mars, and from time to time they imported new animals & plants to the other two planets. Terrestrial history was practically not influenced until 1947 AD, when astronomers detected the habitable planetary surfaces. Therefore Cold War went to space. The Draka sequence of Stirling puts the PoD to somewhere at the second half of the XVIII^thcentury, Northern American loyalists go to South Africa, so the XXth century will be very, very different. (But this sequence is par excellence Military SF, so I ignore it completely.)

Now, Stirling & Flint invented a somewhat different new AH scenario. (I think Stirling was somewhat earlier, but Flintin the 1632 Universe of Assiti Shards has a big net of collaboration, so novels are published rather fast.)

The idea is “simple”. A tremendously superhuman ET civilisation sends back a negligible part of our contemporary Earth into the past, and replaces the surface with the past one. In Flint’s 1632 [6] a West Virginian small miner town of 2000 is sent back to Thuringy in 1631, the heyday of the Thirty Year War.

Stirling’s somewhat similar scheme produced so far 6 full novels, 1 novelette, a 7^th novel is just being published, and 1 in preparation [7-15]. In [7-10] Something sends back the Island of Nantucket and its immediate maritime neighbourhood from 1998 AD to 1250 BC. The Nantucketers sometimes discuss what may have happened, and they agree that most probably the 1250 BC Nantucket emerged in 1998 AD, but, of course, they cannot check. Then [11] is the opposite viewpoint: post-Change USA. Some Superhuman agency slightly changed some Physical Laws on the 1998 surface of Earth, so that the Boyle-Mariotte Gas Law changes, so gasoline engines do not work, gunpowder merrily burns but does not detonate, steam engines can work only with negligible efficiency and there is no electric current (I do not yet understand the relation of the last change to the previous ones). High energy 1998 civilisation breaks down and the overwhelming majority of Humanity dies out; but at some centers good organisers found a post-Change civilisation, a viable hybrid of XXth century and High Middle Ages. And then [14] starts to sew together [7-10] with [11-13], and with more Realities as well. I conjecture that in a few years Stirling will write something establishing a link between the Lords of Creation and the Nantucket anomaly.

While this opus is not yet comparable in size and details with that of Honoré de Balzac, it may be later; and while Balzac had to know only his present society and its immediate past, Stirling is confronted with scientific problems, and with a number of different societies. True, the scientific problems are not direct. Earthpeople do not understand the Lords of Creation; not even the bioscience of Martian hominids. But Stirling should; or at least has to make the impression he knows more about than us.

So far he generally fulfils the expectations. But the opus is a challenge for somebody (I mean myself) who is the President of a Matter Economy Subcommittee. Evolution of sciences, evolution of languages, evolution of hominids...

I am going to make a series of comments of that opus. That will not be criticism. Nobody is interested if I like or dislike a book. Rather I am going to discuss different items in the books from the viewpoint of the actual science (or, sometimes, scholarship).

Sometimes this is really a challenge. E.g. Lords of Creation definitely use a physics unknown for us. And our present physics is not the Physics. For 2000 years it was not only elementary experience but also Fundamental Theory that there is no Motion (at least, except for transients,) without Force. People generally believe that Aristotle was stupid and the later generations did not dare innovate; but Aristotle did know that his theory was not yet complete. See his own words about the problem of ballistics (spears and arrows) [16]. In Chap. 32 of Mechanics he writes: “Why is it that an object which is thrown eventually comes to a standstill? Does it stop when the force which started it fails, or because the object is drawn in a contrary direction, or is it due to its downward tendency, which is stronger than the force which threw it? Or is it absurd to discuss such questions, while the principle escapes us?” (Italics are mine.) The paragraph is clear enough even it contains only questions. The Stagirite did know that ballistics was at best very difficult to describe even in his theory; and he was not able to do. Still, missiles flew; and later somebody would improve even his description.

Before Einstein’s success not only everybody in physics was convinced that Flow of Time was independent of spatial motions; everybody believed that even a doubt would be meaningless. Special Relativity appeared a mere 103 years. Similarly, until the formulation of Quantum Mechanics (more or less 1926) physicists were convinced that any object has its sharp momentum and position, although maybe we do not know them; and similarly that one object cannot be simultaneously here and there. It seemed defetism to question the first statement and unscientific magic the second. That was 82 years ago.

Our present science will be so primitive and untrue for the XXV^th century as the Aristotelian physics for us. Still, Aristotle was a true scientist (while Platon, Marcion, Plotinos and Melanchton were not), as a true physicist as  e.g. Galileo, Newton and Einstein. Our present physics will not be substituted by a free choice of personal theories (Aquarius or not Aquarius) but by a still unknown new theory explaining what the previous theory did and some further ones as well. And then, after a time the next theory will be disproven as well...

Stirling’s books show alternate realities. We know only one of them; but there may be others. But are the stories consistent at least with our present knowledge plus the assumption that Alternate Realities can exist? This is a nontrivial but very interesting question.

In this study I concentrate on the Martian humanity on Stirling’s LC TimeLine. It is not so trivial for us as the Venusians are; they had of course been transplanted from Earth too, but it happened lots of time ago and now they are in average more intelligent, taller, more neotenous and their biological sciences are (or were?) much, much more advanced as ours.

I try not to include spoilers; but the notion must be precisely defined. I acted accordingly also in the previous 3 studies, but now I state the rules. For many books of Stirling you may find “previews”, i.e. a few Chapters, on Internet. I do not give the URL, “not to give spoilers”, but you can find them in some minutes. Now, when the hardcover first edition appears, somebody can still take the attitude that he is waiting for the cheap paperback edition, so he would be disturbed by spoilers. But when the paperback is out, everybody who is interested can buy the paperback, or if not, he is not really interested and the spoilers would not take away his nonexistent interest. So here I base my study on the first 6 Chapters of [5], found on Internet, albeit I do possess the full book.

1. ON THE POSSIBILITY OF LIFE ON OTL MARS

In the second part of this sequel of studies I already discussed the planetological differences between OTL and LCTL Marses; these differences, obviously, originated from the intervention of the Lords of Creation: 3’ difference in rotational period, presence of a somewhat thin but still substantial atmosphere &c. and surface water. The first difference is irrelevant and may be some side effect of the terraforming activity of the Lords of Creation on the LC TimeLine; the other 2 are necessary for present life on LCTL.

But life was very probably present on our TimeLine originally too. Theonly direct evidence so far is Martian meteorite ALH84001, with traces of proto-bacteria. The basalt of ALH84001 is c. 4 Gy old; and similar terrestrial bacterium-traces are known from c. 3.7 Gy old layers around Barberton (at the South Africa-Swaziland border) [17]. The Martian and terrestrial environments could not have been too unsimilar 4 Gy ago: reducing atmosphere, mainly CO2, H2O and maybe N2. Cosmic abundance of C, N and O is quite high (on 0.1 % level), and proto-Mars could collect as many H2O & CO2 via planetesimals accreted from chondritic matter as proto-Earth could. Indeed, Mars got more water than Earth did [18]. As for atmospheric N, the exact way of collecting it is still a mystery for proto-Earth and it would be slightly easier to explain it for proto-Mars.

Old Martian (OTL) riverbeds (dry now) are evidences for an epoch with substantial atmosphere and liquid water; but this epoch seems to have ended 2 Gy ago (albeit optimists would claim a mere 500 My). Note that the timescale of losing light molecules on Mars is a few hundreds of My on Mars while it is more than the lifetime of Sun on Earth. The difference is caused by the greater escape velocity on Earth.

However the interiors of the planets can sustain the atmosphere, as far as volcanism is going. Calculations give that Earth will have problems after c. 3 Gy in the future, but Martian global  plate tectonics stopped c. 2 Gy ago. As for shield volcanoes, and especially for Mons Olympus, who knows?

Until there is volcanism (even post-volcanism), there is some scant support for the atmosphere from the interior; and then life is not ruled out. Now (surely since the Viking probes at least) we see that the supply cannot be much. However this standpoint was again and again challenged until the early 70’s, on various grounds, as e.g.:

1)      The 4 big volcanoes of the Tharsis region, Montes Olympus, Ascraeus, Pavonis and Arsia are clearly shield volcanoes, so they may have grown after the end of global tectonics. Indeed, the latter 3 was estimated to be a mere 300 My old [19], while Olympus, the biggest, seems even younger. Some lava flows on the slopes of Mons Olympus are rather free of meteor craters

2)      Above/around the 4 volcanoes of the Tharsis observations exist for “clouds”. They may be observational errors, or interactions of the thin atmosphere and the tremendous slopes, even precipitation; but it is tempting to think on post-volcanic gas ejections [20].

3)      Lots of other transient phenomena were observed. Some of them are flares, so pinpoint lights. In the 50’s and 60’s some Japanese observers even got the impression of nuclear bombs. The flares were mostly seen by the Flagstaff Obsevatory on one hand and by Japanese observers on the other (cf. e.g. [21]; Saheki published a lot about Martian flares including a whole book, but they are mainly in Japanese), but not exclusively. For a flare on a planetary surface volcanic activity is the simplest explanation.

Now we think that some of these observations were incorrect while the others have quite different (but unknown) explanations. But we were not sure about this in the 60’s, and were much more positive in the 50’s.

2. THE OTHER HUMANITY AND OTHER ANIMALS

LCTL Mars has an interesting biosphere: no surprise that on LCTL Earth the planet is sometimes called “Australia in icebox”. The temperature is low enough (some 10 centigrades below terrestrial, in average, [5] Ch. 1, henceforth mere Chapters always mean the Chapters of [5]), but more extremal because of the longer seasons, plus in present years an atmospheric density which is comparable at sea level to that in terrestrial mountains and to that of Tibet or the Andes in mountains. We do know that the density decreased much in historical times Martian; protagonist Teyud za-Zhalt in Ch. 3 refers to a Martian statement that environment will not support higher life anymore in 25,000 years Martian. The reason of such a fast deteriorating is not given; but we may guess that it was some effect of high civilisation because it exists on a comparable timescale.

It seems that animals were transplanted from Earth in several steps; but, in contrast to Venus, many transplanted species simply died out, no doubt because of the harsh conditions. It seems that Triassic/Jurassic diapsid reptiles and protostomian molluscs evolved on un-Earthly paths, terrestrial birds may or may not have been transplanted (this deserves some discussion somewhat later) and generally mammals were not too successful, except Homo and canids.

We learn from [5] (surely, via Earthpeople interpreting fossils and Martian information) that Martian hominids had been transplanted c. 200,000 years ago. (Henceforth “years” mean Terrestrial years. Martian years are mentioned as “year(s) Martian”. Both sides act generally as if the conversion factor were 2, but it is 1.881.) In that time 3 divergent humanities existed: the archaic Homo sapiens in Africa, the more or less archaic Neanderthals in Europe (well after the heidelbergiensis or Vértesszöllős stade, but still far from the classical variety, e.g. La Chapelle aux Saints), and the late erecti of Eastern Asia (e.g. Dali). See Table 1 about the situation 200 millennia ago. We will return in due course to the problem which group of the three may have been the ancestor of Martian humanity.

Continent	Characteristic fossil/Age ky	Brain volume cm^3
Africa	Rhodesian Man, 125-250	1325
Europe	Steinheim, 205	1150
Europe	Swanscombe, 200?	?
East Asia	Dali, 209±23	1150

Table 1: Some hominids from about 200,000 BP

Animals of Venus are either descendants of lineages well known but extinct on Earth (e.g. the many big diapsid reptiles), or local descendants of quite familiar terrestrial types (e.g. many birds); but sometimes they can be classified into existing terrestrial genera and sometimes it is not clear if they belong to a definite terrestrial species. The final proof would be hybridisation; but it would be extraorbitantly expensive to transport big animals between planets. But see Dr. Feldman’s discussion about the classification of the Venusian bovid, tharg, which is definitely kosher ([4], Ch. 1).

In contrast, Martian animals can, in the best case be classified into terrestrial classes [5], Ch. 5). E.g. the re-discoverers of Rema-Dza observe several small mammals in the abandoned city in the Deep Beyond. Terrestrial Jeremy Wainman is not too interested (on Earth you can find lots of rats or mice in abandoned cities) but he does not calculate with the nontriviality of sources of water & food. On the other hand, Martian Baid tu-Or & Teyud za-Zhalt are surprised but do not want to classify at all.

Nobody doubts that engines (i.e. animals used in landships, elevators &c.) have been developed by tembst from maritime invertebrates. However, “invertebrate” is a negative term meaning merely “not belonging to Phylum Vertebrata”. Sponges, crabs, molluscs and sea anemones are all invertebrates. In [5] Ch. 5 it is told that far ancestors of landship engines were in kinship with Ammonites and squids. That is our Cephalopoda class of the Mollusca phylum. The class existed already 200 million years ago.

Flying vertebrates need some discussion. Terrestrials call them simply “birds”, but the descriptions pose some doubts. E.g. in [5], Ch. 2 the description mentions tail, and something which seems to be teeth. True, Jurassic Archaeopteryx did have tail & teeth, and terraformation was in Early Triassic. However, an Encyclopedia quotation in [5], Ch. 3 explicitly tells that Martian flying vertebrates are only analogons of birds; they have descended from theropod dinosaurs.

But note that terrestrial birds have also descended from teropod dinosaurs. So the Martian “birds” may be descendants of theropod dinosaurs just transplanted in transition to Class Aves 200 ky ago, or could have been transplanted somewhat later. (Poikilotherm dinosaurs must have had problems on cold Mars; birds are warm-blooded.) There was still time for later transplantation: Infraclassis Enantiornithes was quite successful on our Northern hemisphere with true tails and with some patterns never seen on Earth after the Dinosaur Killer. We classify Infraclassis Enantiornithes into Class Aves; but it is a mere matter of definition. Look simply at the name of the infraclass.

3. WHENCE?

Can we determine the continent of origin of the Martian humans? No; but we can guess. But first let us note that the purpose is not idle curiosity. If we (here, in OTL, without the help of powerful LCTL biological science) accept the Out of Africa/Replacement hypothesis, then we are the endproduct of the African evolution; the other two branches died out. Now, viable hybridization is questionable between the African sapiens and European neanderthalensis, in spite of the Lagar Velho Boy. (He looks hybrid enough, but he died in his fifth year, so he might have been sublethal.) And indeed, there was an independent evolution of 750 ky beyond his European parent; and the Dali individual had an 1600 ky evolution Far from Africa. By other words, the future of Terra-Mars integration might depend on the continent of origin (see [5], Ch. 5 for the beginning of the problem).

We do know that the genetic distance between Martian and terrestrial humans almost as big as between terrestrial humans and chimps; and that capacity for interbreeding is doubtful ([5], Ch. 2). Now, this may mean one of two possibilities:

1)      Martian humans have not been picked up in Africa (a mere 200 ky independent evolution does not produce substantial distance; or

2)      the substantial distance comes from 30 ky Martian biodesign.

Now, we have some detailed descriptions of the Martians of Dvor-Il-Adazar and Zar-tu-Kan, even if much different variants must exist too, as the almost noseless hybrids mentioned in Prologue & Chapter 2 of Ref. [5] show it.

Ref. [5] gives lots of references to outward appearances; the problem is that often the remarks are relative and subjective: “They are such-and-such [of course compared to us].” When such remarks are referred here, special fonts are used when Earthers refer Martians or when Martians refer Earthers.

We, until a global anthropology of Mars is not available, define the Standard Martian as the average non-De’ming denizen of Zar-tu-Kan. Dvor-Il-Adazar, the old capital of the Imperial Dynasty, has a higher percentage of “high castes”, and Martians are more differentiated than Earthers, surely because of tens of millenia of biological sciences, eugenics & so. However high castes are present also in the city-states. De’ming are probably artificial, deliberately “subhuman”, so it might distort the picture to include them into the reconstruction of human evolution. Of course, the Lords of Creation might have performed deliberate modifications on the standard Martian stock as well; or they might have not. We cannot decide this at this moment.

Martians are sexually less dimorphous than Earthers ([5], Ch. 2), surely because the development of the embryo needs a conscious effort of the mother. This surely correlates with the low procreation rate favoured by the bad environment. We do not know if this inhibition of procreation is a result of some tembst, or is spontaneous: early termination of pregnancy in rats & hares under bad conditions is commonplace, and for terrestrial humans we seem to know that unwanted embryos at least develop slower.

Martian height average is 6’6” ([5], Ch. 1; because of small sexual dimorphism it is not necessary to distinguish between males & females). There are practically no normal adults below 6’ (while De’ming  heights are less, generally under 6’). See the impressions of Teyud-za-Zhalt about Captain Sally Yamashita, 5’11”, so rather high for an Earther female: “Sally Yamashita was indeed very strange-looking, at one moment like a dwarf, at another like an aged child.” ([5], Ch. 2) It seems that high castes are in average taller.

As for body mass, for Martians it seems less than for Earthers. Let us see an estimate. Teyud za-Zhalt (7’2”; [5], Ch. 2) seems to be very massive in Martian comparison (...She didn’t have the birdlike fragile lightness of most Martians...; [5], Ch. 5). Now, catching her in free fall is “the equivelent of catching fifty pounds on Earth”. Being Martian surface gravity 38 % of the terrestrial one, on Earth she would be c. 130 pounds, maybe the average of physically active terrestrial females.

For IQ, the terrestrial average is 100, the Martian one is 125 ([5], Ch. 4), but with smaller standard deviation. Perhaps the higher IQ has been triggered by the environment ([5], Ch. 3).

[5] Ch. 5 gives a description of nude Teyud za-Zhalt: longer limbs, deeper chest, almost total absence of body hair. Skin is pale olive, and cool. Martians tolerate better cold environment, although this ability seems to depend on caste.

Martians are generally physically weaker than Earthers; this seems to have been the reason of producing De’ming for work. But this is also somewhat caste-dependent: Teyud za-Zhalt (Martian female) copies a downward jump of Jeremy Wainman (Earther male), followed by nobody ([5], Ch. 2), and in the expedition of Captain Sally Yamashita the two strongest members are Wainman & za-Zhalt ([5], Ch. 6).

For body conformation (especially for face) Wainman’s face “was rough as if hewn from rock by a not-very-skilled sculptor who used a percussive method”. On the other hand, Martians “look neotenous and... very refined” ([5], Ch. 4).

We do not yet know if Martian humanity belongs to the species Homo sapiens, where all recent terrestrial humans belong. To be clear, this is not a matter of either definition or Political Correctness. In biology species is something can be measured (except for rare borderline cases). E.g. the genetical distance between two separate species must be greater than a critical distance (which, of course, somewhat depends on the method calculating the distance) or the hybridisation must be infertile between them. As a tendency, the two criteria walk hand in hand: if the genetic distance is too large then a variety of incompatibilities arise in hybridisation and the embryo does not start or dies or the hybrid is infertile (this is the case of horse-ass hybridisation); but, inversely, if the hybrid is infertile, then even without substantial genetic distance (“sibling species”) a divergent evolution starts (by random walk of mutations) and after some time also the genetical distance will be substantial.

Let us see examples. Sapiens and chimpanzee are almost certainly separate species (for a while I do not want to use genus names; you will see why not), because nobody ever observed a sapiens-chimpanzee hybrid. In the first half of XXth century the question was somewhat discussed, so the hybridisation is not a priori impossible, but it seems it is not viable. However the genetic distance is surprisingly small, below 1, which was really a surprise. In vitro experiments might clarify something or they might not; but ethical problems are a barrier on OTL Terra, and there are no chimps on LCTL Mars. According to various computer simulations the independent evolutions of the two species went for 5-5.5 My; interestingly enough there happened some queer back-hybridisation event at the beginning.

Chimpanzee and bonobo are regarded as two separate species, although the outward appearances are almost identical (bonobos are somewhat smaller and more slender). Separation time seems some 3 My. Habitats do not overlap, and sexual habits differ very much, so it is possible that trivial barriers hinder the hybrid; soon we will know more.

Nobody ever observed a chimpanzee-gorilla hybrid. The separation time is c. 6 My, so this is no more a surprise.

Mules are horse-ass hybrides. The hybrid is healthy, but infertile (it is not exactly sure that there are no very rare exceptions). The separation time is c. 2 My.

Now we may try with a thumb rule. E.g. we may use the working hypothesis that  c. 1.5 My is necessary to reach a genetic distance sufficient for losing the possibility of fertile hybrids. Then the oldest australopithecinae (africanus, afarensis, ramidus,...) found in fossils may have belonged to the first forking from chimpanzee. Then the australopithecinae developed into habilis on one hand, and into late australopithecinae (as e.g. boisei) on the other. The “late australopithecinae” then died out (some 500 ky - 1 My ago).

According to the thumb rule erectus may or may not be different from habilis; and sapiens may or may not be different from erectus; the thumb rule would suggest c. 4 forkings in our past (note that discoverers have the tendency to give new species name to every find which can be distinguished from the old ones;  and that the first find may be somewhat younger than the species itself). The determination of the speciation events is not easy because it is impossible to check the cross-fertility; but a possible sequence is given below:

1)      Separation from the chimpanzee lineage in Eastern Africa; 5.1 My. The immediate descendants are (ardipithecus) ramidus (first find from 4.4 My; the earlier “kadabba subspecies” from 5.2 My may even be very close to the “missing link” or ardipithecinae may be proto-chimpanzees or human-chimpanzee hybrids or anything) and (australopithecus) anamensis (4.2 My).

2)      Forking into gracile australopithecinae and robust (and herbivore) paranthropi maybe, the last common ancestor being maybe afarensis (in 3.3 My?).

3)      Habilis separates from other bipedal kins in Eastern Africa; (2.5 My?); or: erectus lineage separates in Africa (1.7 My); and later becomes global having migrated into Eurasia.

4)      Sapiens develops in Africa, several hundreds of kiloyears ago, and then migrates globally.

Of course, the thumb rule may not be true; but surely no new and new true species were formed in each hundred kiloyears. But then surely we cannot classify the hominids into 4 genera (Ardipithecus, Australopithecus, Paranthropus, Homo). Goodman’s simple suggestion ([22], [23]) is that even chimpanzees belong to the Genus Homo (on the grounds that in parallel branches c. 6 My is needed for the formation of a new genus). Of course, from this point we are in problems with the age-old terminus technicus “hominisation”; see App. A.) For any case, it seems that the usual genus names are rather species names; and old species names are subspecies ones. From the human-chimp split we then have cca. four species: australopithecus, paranthropus, erectus, sapiens; and at least ardipithecus too, but it is not on the branch leading to us. But it is even possible that erectus and sapiens were cross-fertile: see e.g. Ref. [24] which uses te term “sapiens” from 1.6 My upwards.

And now we have arrived at the critical point. 200 ky ago the Lords of Creation may have collected hominids at 3 spots, namely:

a)      in Africa, and they were archaic sapiens;

b)      in Europe, and they were archaic neanderthals;

c)      or in Southeast Asia, and they were late erecti.

Archaic sapiens very probably would have been cross-fertile within us, and for the 3 pairs above any one might and might not fertile; it should need detailed discussion anyway.

And so, Martian humans on LC TimeLine may or may not be cross-fertile with us. This, for post-2000 LCTL Mars, would seriously influence the society. Namely, Martians are extremely sensitive on genomes and the fate of descendants (long lifetime but few children) but they are definitely interested in humans of the Wet World (see [5], Chs. 5 & 6). If the individuals are not cross-fertile, then there is simply rishathra (with the expression invented by Larry Niven for sexual acts of not cross-fertile humans on Ringworld [25]), raising only simple morality problems. But if they are cross-fertile, then for the very differentiated and very genome-conscious Martians a big problem arises: what is the (genomic) status of the child? (For a terrestrial analogy, both on OTL and on LCTL see App. B.)

What is the genomic status of a child of a “common Martian” and an Earther? Earthers are stronger but Martians wrote when Cro-Magnons painted cave walls. What is the genomic status of an Earther and a Thoughtful Grace? Thoughtful Graces are still weaker but definitely more refined. What would be the genomic status of an Earther and one of the carrier of the Tollamune genome? (I am both Earther and on the OTL, albeit I very probably exist on LCTL too; I do not go into details here, but so I here on OTL doubly do not have to express horrified negation of my own highly theoretical and sacrilegous Interrogative-Hypothetical question in extreme Deferential Mode, which would be necessary but maybe not sufficient on LCTL Mars.) And what will be Teyud za-Zhalt’s plans about Jeremy Wainman after the strong attraction described in [5], Chs. 5 & 6? Her genome is very fortunate: she tolerates cold very well, she is the second strongest member of the Rema-Dza expedition ([5], Ch. 6), so stronger than the De’ming and Sally Yamashita, she is highly intelligent, she is 7’2” tall and dares to jump from heights whence not even Captain Yamashita does dare. So surely she regards her genomic status high; in the same time she is definitely intrigued by the firmness of terrestrial beards ([5], Ch. 4). Not an easy situation; and the future of the chief actors may indeed be influenced by the degree of compatibility of Martian and terrestrial human genomes.

Now, my guess is that the Lords of Creation collected the transplanted humans in Europe. Namely 200 ky ago Europe was the coldest spot with human population, and one would not try with terrestrial tropical population on cool Mars if there is any alternative. Counterevidence would be if the European stock as ancestors would be incompatible with the properties of present LCTL Martian humanity. For this purpose let us see the European fossils from 200 ky ago; the possible subsequent evolution will be discussed in the next Chapter.

Several fossils are known from Europe of c. 200 ky BP, but they are mainly skulls or even skull fragments. Some complete skeletons are known from a later period (the “classical Neanderthals”). Because nobody seriously doubts that the 200 ky old Europeans were the direct ancestors of the classical Neanderthals, with some caution we may use the postcranial properties of the later guys together with the 200 ky old skulls. Mid-century finds had no reliable datings (we are beyond the horizon of C-14); in the best case the associated fauna was used to determine the climate and then the Milankovic-calculations were used; but no surprise the meteorogical part of the logical chain has been then proven incorrect. However we may use the correlations: the same climate may mean similar ages.

There is a group of fossils often called “early Neanderthals” although they may be just the transitional stage from heildenbergis to neanderthal, or anything, see e.g. [26]. (Earlier I told some arguments against considering these terms as species names.) An incomplete list of these fossils is: Atapuerca (the last individuals), Biache, Casal de’ Pazzi, Ehringsdorf, Fontechevade, La Chaise, Lazaret, Montmaurin, Steinheim, Swanscombe & Vértesszöllős. For Vértesszöllős modern radioactive dating gives 225-185 ky, and for Ehringsdorf 205-200 ky, so this is definitely the period of acquisition; the others are a bit younger but not much.

Now, the Vértesszöllős skull suggests 1300 cm³ brain capacity and the much more complete Ehringsdorf finds show 1450 cm³; they are the most brainy populations of the Earth of that period, just as the later classical Neanderthals were also, and the latter ones are still, of any period. (The average for modern men is generally referred as 1450 cm³ and for classical neanderthals the average is sometimes given as 1528 cm³, sometimes 1550, sometimes 1600.) To be sure, Biache is only 1200 cm³, so the brain capacity varied; but the brain is essentially at our modern size, so if any ancestor could have evolved into recent Martians with IQ 125, then the early Neanderthals of Europe could.

However they were definitely not “neotenous and very refined”. This point will be discussed in the next Chapter, but here I note that i) early Neanderthals had the truely “gerontomorph” or “robust” properties of classical Neanderthals in much more moderate extent; and ii) the most “robust”, “rough” or “beastly” (adjectives depend on authors and time; but none of them indicates something very much neotenous & refined; Koenigswald [26] neutrally tells only that the biggest) face of the period belongs to the Broken Hill skull from Rhodesia (or: Kabwe, Zimbabwe), so it is African, a late archaic sapiens. He had a capacity of 1325 cm³. As for the postcranial body, the Martians differ a lot from the Neanderthals; but 200 ky under 0.38 g gravity changes the anatomy very much.

Some early Neanderthal skulls are so unsimilar to classical Neanderthals that there had been a serious theory of “pre-sapients” in the 50’s and 60’s. The most famous proponent of the theory was Vallois (see e.g. [27]), and the theory was based on the fact that the first Upper Palaeolithic finds came from France, so the West of Eurasia. (We now know that the fact was in fact an artefact; but then nobody could know it.) So, went the argumentation, H. sapiens must have come from a remote nook of Westernmost Europe (Bretagne? England? Ireland?), where he had earlier a long isolated existence during which the non-Neanderthal properties developed. Now, some anthropologists believed that they had found at least the beginning of the sapiens evolution: face less robust, skull higher, brows becoming more and more slender &c. Four finds were suggested to belong to the pre-sapiens group: Fontéchevade, Montmaurin, Steinheim & Swanscombe; but Vallois considered Montmaurin & Steinheim pre-Neanderthal and only Fontéchevade & Swanscombe pre-sapiens. Even then, he believed that some of our Early Neanderthals from 200 ky Europe belonged to our own lineage leading to neotenous & refined ourselves (even if not so neotenous & refined as Teyud za-Zhalt).

So I suggest Europe as source of Martian humanity. The target can be somewhat narrowed down by using inverse logic. As we saw earlier [28], the Lords of Creation did not influence the History of Earth even in details as names of leading politicians & such until 1947; and the science until 1932. So the 200 ky intervention probably happened somewhere on Neanderthal periphery; maybe not near to sites known before 1932. Then France is out of question; with great parts of Germany.

Interestingly enough, Swanscombe would satisfy the criterion; on OTL it was discovered in 1935. But this is not even a guess.

4. ON NEOTENY AND SELF-DOMESTICATION

Ref. [5] Ch. 4 gives an interesting dialog between Mercenary Captain Teyud za-Zhalt and Historian Jeremy Wainman amongst the ruins of the city Rema-Dza in a break of the Herculanean work of hiding the landship Intrepid Traveler in an abandoned building. Even they are tired, and chat for diversion. Teyud starts with handling Jeremy’s day-old stubbles of beard; by any chance this is not flirtation (or not purely): she never has seen a beard. OK; humans of the Wet World are weird; they may have hair on the face or even on other spots (as Jeremy tells her for embarrassing). But: the stubbles are strong; difficult to be bent. “There was an immense solidity of the feel, more so than even a Thoughtful Grace, a feeling of huge strength.” Until now Teyud za-Zhalt did not meet anybody more solid and stronger than her. And as a mercenary captain, strength is a great thing for her.

They discuss briefly the Lords of Creation and evolution or non-directed-development. And personal appearances too:

· “Your people are so intriguingly...rough-hewn.”

· “...To us you look neotenous and...very refined.”

Well, both are outside the other’s norm, but they are fascinated about each other and they honour each other. (No surprise. They are not concurrents in anything.) So Teyud tells rough-hewn instead of, say, coarse or brutish. Answering, Jeremy calls Teyud neotenous and...very refined, not childish or pedomorphous. They try to go over the barrier of genetic distance D [29] (whose tentative value still needs further discussion, see App. A).

Now, let us see neoteny in some details; then we understand a lot of the book.

In strict sense neoteny is the phenomenon when an animal has a larval stade of the ontogeny, and then some larval features survive in the adult. Its extreme grade is the pedogenesis, when simply the larval stage becomes able to procreate. Then the adult grade completely vanishes. An interesting example, well known even in XIXth century is the axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum/Siredon pisciformes). The animal lives in the Lake Xochimilco where it is regularly “fished”. Because of its weird features it was described by the Spaniards well before the evolutionary ideas: the animal has four limbs, but they are weak; it does not come to land at all, and it has gills. As if a strange mixture of a fish and an amphibian (so it is pisciform indeed). Later, with the ideas of Darwin, Huxley & Haeckel briefly arose the possibility that the axolotl could be a living fossil, preserving an earlier stade of the evolution of land animals.

But no: the axolotl is an Ambystoma, which genus can be found at lots of loci in Mexico and USA; and there are rare cases when other Ambystomes keep the gills as well. On the other hand, after lots of experiments in laboratory the true adult form of the animal has been produced; it is not unsimilar to A. tigrinum. The trick was made with a thyroid hormone, the thyroxine. Syredon is an Ambystoma with not enough thyroxine.

The case was quite graphic. The animal did not reach full maturity (because of lack of thyroxine, surely a simple mutation). One would expect extinction via lack of the next generation. But somehow in some individual sexual maturity came earlier than that of the whole body (a phenomenon not unheard of) and then A. mexicanum’s larval stage procreated. Now we can switch on/off the Siredon by thyroxine. So Siredon pisciformes is the neotenic form of Ambystoma mexicanum (existing in laboratories). What if hybridising them?

The most spectacular variety of this neoteny is when there is a possibility that a whole phylum of Regnum Animalia has evolved in neoteny. On the deuterostomatic (so nostratic) side of the family tree Hemichordata (Tunicata; ascidians and kins) seems the immediate neighbour of Chordata, which contains simply the Amphioxus and us, Vertebrata. The closeness of these groups (phyla? subphyla?) can be seen from the appearance of the dorsal spinal neural cord and a solid but elastic spinal “rod”; they, in such a way, appear only in these groups. But there are differences in quantity.

All Vertebrata have the dorsal neural cord in whole life, they have the spinal rod in youth and sometimes in youth vertebrae start do develop around it. Then with the rod happens what happens; in the adult the “column” of vertebrae support the endoskeleton and defend the spinal cord.

However, Amphioxus never develops vertebrae. The primordial rod remains, besides the spinal cord (which is the central neural system in the lack of a head).

In Tunicata the situation varies. The ascidians have a spinal rod, in the larval stage; but only along the tail; and some neural cord along it. However the maturing ascidian loses the tail and so the rod; a part of the neural cord becomes the brain (such as...). The Thaliacea does not have a tail at all. And the Copelata keep the tail for the whole life; of course with the spinal rod and the dorsal neural cord. They look like very neotenous ascidians, by other word, procreating ascidian larvae [30].

If the Tunicata is a monophyletic group at all, then the evolutionary explanation is easy. The mature ascidians are fixed (by any adaptation); in the larval stage they actively swim. So the larva has the tail for swimming; the mature animal does not need it. The evolution happened maybe in Precambrian, and we do not understand the strategy, but nevermind. Then Copelata are either nearer to the ancestors which have not become fixed, or neotenous/pedomorph ascidians.

But then: how were we formed? I mean, we, Vertebrata? An Amphioxus is similar (well; for structure) to the tail of an ascidian. So we have 3 possibilities.

1)      The Tunicata and the Chordata are the two survivors, but obviously there were other groups too. An unknown protochordate had an Amphioxus-like body but with a frontal part too. By specialisation we get all four groups (I mean, ascidians, thaliaceans, Copelata and Amphioxus) on different paths; we, Vertebrata are either very sophisticated post-Amphioxus stock, or a fifth path. The scheme is quite elastic but with lots of Missing Links, and quite speculative.

2)      According to Occam’s Razor we may try to explain Chordata from Tunicata. Copelata are neotenous/pedomorph ascidians. A subgroup of proto-Copelata lost the precaudal part of the body and became a pre-Amphioxus. Thence in the usual way. This is the scheme where a whole phylum was produced by neoteny.

3)      There is Williamson’s idea [31]. In it larvae and adult forms were originally quite different animals, but then, in times of great tribulations and challenges, they started to cooperate. Geneticists hate the idea (e.g. hybridisation between phyla would need very strange behaviour of chromosomes), while Orson Scott Card seems to like it (see the Bahian pequeninos and trees [32]). Anyway, larvae and adults need almost two disjoint sets of genetic information, with lots of regulators; very complicated.)

So, neoteny is important enough, sometimes. We, humans, do not have larvae, but still it is possible to retain some embryonic/foetal features into the adult stage. Lodewijk Bolk’s seminal work (see e.g. [33], [34]) was triggered by his observations about “foetal” characters in recent humans compared to apes.

Bolk listed lots of features in which newborn ape and human babies still agree but later the apes take a divergent path while the humans keep the ontogenically original feature.

Newborn apes and humans are quite cephalised; in apes later the brain/body ratio decreases much more than in humans.

Newborn apes and humans are all hairless except the head. Adult apes are quite hairy; adult humans are much less or even hairless except the head and isolated spots.

All mammalian embryos show some characteristic curvatures. These curvatures can be seen on adult humans, but not on apes or dogs. So the modern human face is orthognathic, while for chimp (babuin, dog &c.) it is prognathic. In the human female the vagina is more or less forward; for other mammals it is backward. This is the popular explanation of frontal human copulations vs. caudal behind animal ones; but see the recent reports about “human” poses at chimps (especially bonobos) or even at gorillas. Again, this is so because the caudal curvature of the foetus is preserved in humans but not in other mammals. And so on.

And there is an interesting “psychologic” point. Newborns, preadults  &c. learn better and more than adults, for all mammals. Still, adult humans keep more interest in new knowledge and ways of life than adult apes; and adult apes keep more than adult monkeys do. No surprise that humans learn a lot more.

Anything be the reason behind, humans are “more pedomorphous” than apes, so some foetalisation/neoteny was (and maybe still is) in work. The agent may be shifts in hormone levels. And observe that humans develop slower and live longer than apes.

Bolk compared times of doubling the body weight just after being born; he found that it is 47 days for cattle, 60 days for horse and 180 days for humans. There is a slowdown of the postnatal development. Human females become sexually mature in the 12^th year; for chimps this is 7-8^th. As for the maximal lifetime, humans live in average longer than chimps, even caeteris paribus; but chimps live longer than monkeys; and Primates generally live longer than other mammals of similar size. So some process went on slowing down development.

And look: Martians live longer than us: Jelzhau Zhau-nor of Zar-tu-kan, not too exceptional for genome, a rich spice merchant, looks middle-aged and probably is about 100 years. On the other hand, Emperor Sajir-sa-Tomond of the Tollamune genome was born in 1558, so he is 441 years old at the beginning of the story; he is old, he is under continuous medical supervision, but still active. He guesses that he will not survive more than a few more decades Martian.

And neoteny led to more and more orthognate faces, more or more gracile skeletons &c. in us. Then imagine more neoteny and then there is the more refined Martian humanity. Even in OTL we can imagine the grades.

First, we are more neotenous/refined than neanderthals were. Their face was prognathe enough, their bulging muscles attacked to bony knobs quite visible & such. Or: compare a Western European to an Eastern Asian.

It is well known that a Vietnamese shows less age than a Scot. The Vietnamese is generally “more pedomorphic”. Such discussions are not very popular in recent years, but the thing “can simply be seen”, and, also, I belong to the most Mongolian-composed tribe of the European Union. Some 15 % of us do have the Mongolian spot when born.

Now, Bolk did discuss the relative neoteny (foetalisation) of modern humans. He tells that Mongoloids keep more foetal characters in the facial region than other modern humans, namely low nasal bridge, epicanthic fold & protuberant eyeballs; these features are also preserved in adult Hotentots (now I should write Khoins or Khoisans, but this was in 1927), but in less extent. And there are more gerontomorphic populations than Western Europeans. So if you can see a Vietnamese and some New Guinean of the same age you get some demonstration of a comparison of Teyud za-Zhalt and Sally Yamashita, although the absolute age of the Martian is somewhat higher.

It is a classical idea that some neotenous/paedomorphic properties of humanity are products of self-domestication. Indeed, dogs & cats look like young wolves/wildcats, and this is very expressed for behaviour. Now, we selected them just in this way.

Chimps are as social as we are, even if chimp society is simpler. Nobody can show a human family or chimp isolated for long enough time; Robinson Crusoe (Alexander Selkirk) is an irrelevant exception. The society is around the growing hominid (the term is used in Goodmanian sense, discussed in App. A), and this society can be regarded as an external condition. However it is rather difficult to tell apart paedomorphisation by and independent of self-domestication.

5. HISTORY AND LANGUAGE

Martian history is longer than the terrestrial one. A few decades ago the official definition of “historic ages” was: “after the introduction of writing”. Using this definition (which is at least fully operative) Historic Ages started on Terra in c. 3500 BC, so 5500 years ago. (Some pre/proto-pictographic inscriptions in Egypt are dated to this date; a much more developed but still fully pictographic and not yet deciphered Uruk tablet from Sumer is guessed to 3300 BC.) Now, on Mars the introduction of calligraphy was 40,000 years ago ([5], Ch. 1); simple unsophisticated writing must have been somewhat older as we can use the Chinese parallel knowing the Shang-Yin divination turtle shells.

From Ref. [5] we can get the following chronological data (if no error is given, then the error cannot be determined):

Date^!	Error	Event	Source^$
200,000	?	Human Transplantation	1
180,000	?	Great Extinction of land animals	3
38,000	5000	Cities and calligraphy	1
31,850	940	Tollamunes as Crimson Dynasty. Global Empire	1
28,000	2500	Breeding of De’ming	1
24,330	940	The Canal Inscription. Shel-tor-vu VIII is Emperor	2
20,000	2500	Breeding of Thoughtful Grace starts	4
4000	500	Evacuation of Rema-Dza. Loss of Invisible Crown. Beginning of Age of Dissociation. Timrud sa-Rogol is Emperor	4
820	94	School years of the Conqueror^%	1
1558 AD	0	Later Emperor Sajir sa-Tomond is born	1
1624 AD	10	Sajir’s coronation	1
1887 AD	1	Genomic Prince Heltaw sa-Veynau is born	2
1933 AD	0	Effective PoD on Terra	[28]
1944 AD	4	Teyud za-Zhalt is born^&	5
1979 AD	1	Teyud starts to wander^&	5
1982 AD	0	Terrans arrive at Mars	[4]

Notes:

^! BC, if not indicated otherwise.

^$ Chapter of [5], if not indicated otherwise.

^% Some hero of Independent Zar-tu-Kan.

^& According to her own narration which may contain mystifications.

Table 2: A tentative chronology of LCTL Mars

The two rows of the Table marked by ^& would be more conform with obscure statements if in opposite order. But Teyud’s story is not necessarily correct.

As for the statistics of the Dynasty, the Canal Inscription in Ch. 2 tells that Shel-tor-vu VIII ruled at the exact 4^th millennium of the Dynasty, and he was the 52^nd Emperor. Hence for the first quarter of the Dynasty the average ruling time is 146.1±1.4 ys, mean variation unknown. Since Sajir sa-Tomond is the 225^th, for the first 224 the same is 149.4±4.2 ys. One would except a decrease of the average because of the Troubles, but obviously some changes (better medical care, scarcity of true Tollamunes with the right genome?) counteracted.

As for the language we get very scarce information. Except that it is very difficult, and can formulate complicated statements with a few words. This seems to indicate that the words carry multiple grammatical information. On Earth this is the property of polysynthetic languages, as Basque, Apache, many Caucasian languages and in lesser extent, Magyar. Basque regularly indicates both Subject and Object on the verb by means of suffices; Magyar can do this for 2^nd person Object, but cannot differentiate 1^st and 3^rd ones on the verb. (For more discussions, see App. C.) Maybe such “complexities” occur when the community is not linguistically disturbed for a long time. (This is true for the Pyrenees and for the Caucasus; interestingly enough Magyar participated in the Migration at Early Middle Ages for centuries, without grammatical simplifications.)

6. DETERIORATING ENVIRONMENT

LCTL Mars obviously has serious environmental problems; it seems that the main scarcity is water. Water problems, aridity, new deserts &c. are amply referred. See e.g. the Dvor Il-Adazar celebration when Emperor Sajir sa-Tomond is able to fill a reservoir (with the help of a nuclear reactor from the EastBloc); a deed not performed for ages (Ch. 1); the defunct canal in the desert (Ch. 2) with the Canal Inscription; the extreme scarcity of vegetation around the lost city of Rema-Dza (Ch. 4) or the discussion of Baid tu-Or, Teyud za-Zhalt and Jeremy Wainman in Ch. 5 about little mammals. It seems that the oxygen problem will be secondary: simply if the atmosphere plant dies out in the lack of water, oxygen will be used up. But what is behind water scarcity? Atmospheric pressure is enough to keep H₂O in liquid phase, so water would escape only with the atmosphere, on hundred million year scale.

For any case, observe that there is no H₂O (and CO₂) reinforcement from the mantle. Martian mantle must contain a lot more water than the terrestrial one, being farther from Sun [18], but Global Plate Tectonics seems to have stopped. In OTL we do see that riverbeds &c. are old, from 0.5 to 2 billion years (although from crater density counts Olympus Mons seems as if having lava flows almost recently; an interesting discrepancy). OTL-LCTL true PoD was 200 My ago, so surely there is no Global Plate Tectonics on LCTL Mars either. The Lords of Creation surely had unplugged some volcanic shafts & ducts, but they refroze again in 200 Mys. The recent LCTL Mars does not show signals of LC environmental care.

The text is not too loquacious about the history of environmental deterioration (the recent status is clear enough). Maybe 3 brief notes belong thither:

1)      In the Epilogue of [4] Franziskus Binkis arrives at a room on Mars where the preserved body of Emperor Timrud sa-Rogol sits on a throne. (For his chronologic dating see Table 2.) There is a Globe of Mars in the room too, on which Binkis observes “...more of life and less of desert”, but the continent is “barren” and the sea is “shrunken” even on the globe. So the desiccation started much earlier than Timrud sa-Rogol, and went along even in the last 6,000 years.

2)      In [5], Ch. 1 Jeremy Wainman observes “jagged heights” in the distance, which “had been the edge of a continent when the site of this city [Zar-tu-Kan] was below the waves of a vanished sea”. However the text does not state that this happened during Martian civilisation. The site of future Zar-tu-Kan may have become dry in any time of the past, even before the the Lords of Creation.

3)      In [5] Ch. 1 Emperor Sajir sa-Tomond uses an elevator in the palace. (This happens in 2000 AD.) A rather old decoration in the elevator under glassite depicts a pastoral scene: “small, four-legged creatures with silky fur and overlapping rows of teeth gamboling through reeds beside a lake”. The Emperor “wondered if the place still existed; probably not”. The small creatures “were extinct”. Now, the furry creatures with overlapping rows of teeth are clearly mammal, and the animals are “small”, but substantial enough to be herded. My guess is that the animals were sheep, although lamas or vicunas are possible as well. This text indicates that the extinction happened during the last 35,000 years.

Obviously there was some mechanism holding up the water circulation; very probably biological. This seems to have worked for 200 Mys, including the last 200,000 years after human transplantation. Still, in Ch. 4 Teyud cites Martian savants who tell that Mars will not support higher life after 50,000 years.

The timescale is not areological. It would be in the good order of magnitude e.g. for oxygen exhaustion; for Earth, without plants, free oxygen would be used up in c. 60,000 years. But animals vs. plants can remain in balance for forever; if water is present. So, really, water seems to be the bottleneck. But water will not escape on 50,000 ys scale.

And humanity did not disturb the water balance for 160,000 years. So the problem must have originated from high civilisation (whose existence is c. 40,000 years, so similar to the deterioration scale indeed). Information is too scarce to determine the details of the problem. However a terrestrial analogy may be interesting.

Sumer, so the southern part of the Mesopotamian lowland was a lush marshland 6,000 years ago. (More or less the same time when Rema-Dza was abandoned and the Invisible Crown lost). Of course, population density was not too high, although higher than usual for hunter-gatherer societies.

Then came the Sumerians; we do not yet know whence. They built canals and the good soil, good climate and abundance of water produced another abundance: wheat/barley gave 80-fold yield. Lots of cities appeared.

But in a mere millennium the numbers changed drastically. The Sumerian undersoil was loose, and clayey. The channel irrigation transferred the water to the loose undersoil layer, and the interaction of water and clay resulted in sodium salts coming up with the water level, high because the irrigation. These salts, while formally neutral, are practically basic, as we see it for sodium carbonate [35], [36]. After a mere millennium the wheat/barley ratio went down to 0.2 from the original 1 and the yield went down to its half. Still all the steps leading hither seemed rational and beneficious: for the decrease of yields more irrigation seemed to help. Of course, Sumerians without good chemistry & geology were unable to see the long-range results.

No signal of spoken Sumerian language after more 500 years; the fields become pastures of donkey-riding half-nomadic Arameans.

Massive irrigation brought up natron, the first high civilisation of Earth did not know what to do, the only rational remedy was more canals, more irrigation; then yields grew for short range, but on long range the situation deteriorated even faster.

So Martian tembst was fabulous, but Martians overlooked something. Maybe water seeped into the soil and became stuck there. Physical sciences remained weak. In 2000 AD, after 40,000 years of civilisation, Martian physics is “barely Newtonian”, without Quantum Mechanics or understanding atomic structure (Ch. 4). Then no surprise that Sajir sa-Tomond’s deed to use a nuclear reactor for getting water from the depths was unprecedented, and even he did not get the idea himself.

Imperial Mars had dozens of millennia with global irrigation systems, in a super-hydraulic society of Wittvogel. If anything could go astray, it went.

7. HABITABLE MARS IN OTL ASTRONOMY & LITERATURE

In an earlier study [28] we determined the effective terrestrial PoD between LCTL & OTL as 1933 AD. The notion means that while the true PoD for the Solar System is of course c. -200 My, when the Lords of Creation or Ancients crudely terraformed Venus & Mars, political histories of Earth on the two TimeLines are practically indistinguishable until the end of WWII, political leaders globe-wide have the same names on the two TimeLines are the same at the beginning of the 1950’s &c. Based mainly on end-1980’s Venusian stories + reminiscences [4] the effective terrestrial PoD indeed seemed 1933 AD, when Mt. Wilson astronomers observed quite different Venusian upper atmospheres on the two TimeLines; and being the researchers the same persons, the terrestrial PoD could hardly be much earlier. But then it was told that this effective PoD must be checked on Mars; and that for Mars the story will be more complicated and surprising. So let us see OTL opinions about Mars until Probe Mariner-4.

LCTL Martian atmosphere during the 1900’s is thin, as that of Denver at Northern Sea Level (10.7 psi), more or less terrestrial composition but with higher CO₂, so with somewhat more greenhouse effect. Now, in OTL we have not landed on Mars even now (2008 AD), Space Race being slower here. So Martian atmospheric data do not influence OTL history; what does influence it is the belief about.

LCTL Martian northern sea level atmospheric pressure is 10.7 psi; the corresponding OTL value, although at a different zero level, and only in annual average, 0.1 psi. This is a big enough difference. Divergence of history on Earth starts when the societies of the two Earths start to go on different paths because of the different informations about Mars.

The above paragraph is nice, true and philosophical; but rather intellectual. In simpler language: when an Earth is sure that Mars is habitable, a Space Race may start for Mars. With a Mars of an atmospheric pressure 10.7 psi there is a chance that somebody observes the atmosphere; but Refs. [4] & [5] very much indicate that the effective terrestrial PoD was 1932 AD [28]. Now: how the substantial Martian atmosphere was not observed before 1932?

We in OTL cannot know about LCTL details. So a somewhat inverse approach will be followed: did we in OTL know and acknowledged until 1932 that Mars was not a profitable aim of Space Race?

My point is: OTL Mars seemed quite different in 1932 than in 1972. For this I give some data from publications about Martian atmospheric pressures, both OTL and LCTL, throughout 20^th century. That is Fig. 1.

The individual points come from the following authors, in temporal sequence: 1: Lowell [37]; 2: Menzel [38]; 3: Lyot [39]; 4 & 5: Barabashev [40]; 6: Dollfus [41]; 7: de Vauculeurs [42]; 8: Dolfuss [41]; 9: Schwarzschild [43]; 10: Kaplan, Münch & Spinrad [44]; 11: Owen & Kuiper [45]; 11 & 12 come from the Mariner-4 & 9 probes, respectively. The highest point on the Figure (almost 3 psi) is a calculation from the width of the terminator (so essentially a calculation in the dispersion scheme too) whose original publication I cannot find; see [46].

Now, what are we seeing? The OTL data of the 20^th century show a clear decline of Martian atmospheric pressure; an ad hoc simple logarithmic plot demonstrates this now, but of course some arctg or th functions would be more proper. The transition from “high” pressure (~1.5 psi) to the low one (the Mariner pressures) is centered about early 60’s, but somewhat before the Mariners. (Schwarzschild and Owen already had given the essentially Mariner pressures when Mariner-4 started.)

I have written a book about the problem [47]; but a lot of you cannot know its language. So let us spend a moment about the Figure. It is a composite Figure, giving the LCTL pressure as well. Now, observe that th earlier OTL observations yielded higher pressures; but still well below the LCTL values. The “high” early pressures still were lower than on the highest terrestrial mountain peaks (various visualisations in the 50’s & 60’s varied between 11 and 18 miles), so incompatible with human life. But this fact was generally overlooked.

First, by the sci-fi authors. But not only by them. The founder of the Flagstaff Observatory, Lowell, measures 1.7 psi, and he concludes that this is compatible with rational beings. Then the population tends to imagine these rational beings as essentially or exactly human (you may consult with Burroughs, Nowlan, Brackett & Bradbury, for example; their Martians are generally even interfertile with us), and the idea is not too much discouraged.

It seems that in the early OTL 20 ^th century astronomers measured 1-2 psi for the Martian atmospheric pressure, but the society acted as if it had been at least 5 psi. I am not a sociologist, so the only explanation I try with is wishful thinking; but it seems that “observation of a substantial atmosphere” meant simply an atmosphere in which liquid water can exist, and finer details did not bother the society.

As for atmospheric composition, Adams & St. John observed substantial O₂ and H₂O abundances in the Martian atmosphere [48].

In the EastBloc, or Warsaw Pact, or COMECON, as you like (the first expression is LCTL, the other two are OTL, but probably LCTL as well), the idea of Mars with local rational beings was alive on OTL even in 1957. Here comes the demonstration.

In 1957 a book was published in Russia [49]. The book was a collection, the editorial house was one specialised for children & youth, but the year is one just after a Great Opposition, the article to be discussed here is about Martian life, rational beings and their society, and the author is F. Ziegel, a Candidate, from some Aeronautical Institute in Moscow. (Sometimes the name is written as “Zigel”, but this ambiguity comes from transcription of originally German names through Cyrillic; sometimes the “F.” is read as “Feodor”, but sometimes as “Felix”.)

Now it is clear for everybody from the scientific life of the late COMECON that a Candidate from a Moscow Aeronautical Institute made Real Science, not Pseudoscience; the sequence of dissertations & examinations guaranteed this. (For example, an exam from Marxist Philosophy.) To be clear, I have titles, exams & dissertations one degree higher, so I am not making dirty jokes about the old system. But it did not guarantee that the person would make valuable work in the future; or that the future works could be used for anything; and especially not in the Soviet Union. On the other hand the title did guarantee that the person knew what was regarded (by the reliable part of Society) as Real Science and what as Pseudoscience. So I am sure that in 1957 Soviet science regarded Ziegel’s article as kosher.

Situation was somewhat different in Hungary; Hungarian astronomers & party officials did not believe too much in Martian rational people in 1957. However, Ziegel’s Russian article was translated to Hungarian (and to Roumanian) in Bucharest, and I used that leaflet [50]. The leaflet was published in a series devoted to sci-fi, but this specific leaflet was regarded as Science; there was a scientific check & control on the text, made by J. Niederkorn, Candidate of the Roumanian Academy of Sciences, of Engineering.

The leaflet tells about the Canals of Mars. It tells about Martian seas, their colour, changing with seasons. It refers amply Prof. G. A. Tihov, Director of the Astrobotanical Institute of the Kazakhian Acdemy of Sciences, who started to compose the Botanical Atlas of Mars.

Tihov observed that the seasonal colour changes were sudden and he concluded that the consequences of highly organised agriculture were seen. A highly organised agriculture with reaping campaigns & such. (As it was the aim, but not quite the reality in URSS.) Only Lowell emphasized so the rationality of Martian civilisation, half a century earlier. Not simply a marginally habitable Mars, but one actually populated by highly developed people, in the middle of 50’s in High Science.

But practically that Great Opposition was the last keeping the idea of Martian rational beings alive in the URSS; in the whole COMECON the idea decayed in the next few years. (Hungarian society practically missed the Opposition; we just were having the 1956 revolt against URSS.) On the East State (and/or Party) tried to “organise” Science; so when the majority became sceptic, almost everybody became as well.

On the West the idea of Martians (and Venusians) remained possible for a few years. But the Mariner-2 flyby practically ruled out habitable Venus; and terrestrial observations after 1962 made habitable Mars improbable, while in 1965 Mariner-4 ruled it out. The Soviet Venera landings were either an afterthought or something as weapons industry advertisement.

8. CONCLUSIONS

The conclusion about LCTL Mars, Martian humanity and its history as have been sketchily depicted in [5] consists first of the chronological Table 2, and second of 3 statements, as follows.

A)     The LCTL Martian humanity of [5] was originally transplanted as prae/proto/early Neanderthals, from Europe. Since  the present terrestrial humanity is predominantly African, this means 800 ky independent evolution. Very probably pure evolution (non-directed development) would not have resulted in complete speciation. However, the genetic distance is large (they are “nearly as different ... genetically as humans and chimps”; [5] Ch. 2), surely because of applying tembst on human genetics during the whole Imperial period. So interfertility without tembst is rather questionable.

B)      In [28] we concluded that the effective terrestrial PoD seemed 1932 AD, but we told that it should be checked on LCTL Martian data. Now it has been done. Still, the effective PoD seems to remain 1932 AD. Obviously, our Fig. 1 is purely OTL as far as terrestrial observations are meant; LCTL terrestrial observations might and should have yielded sometimes higher atmospheric pressures. However Fig. 1 demonstrates that we could have gotten almost anything for pressure until 1932. As for O₂ and H₂O content the terrestrial atmosphere mimicked Martian results until the technique using Doppler shift and that became reliable in the ‘20’s. Of course, LCTL astronomy books from the ‘20’s surely contain some non-OTL sentences and Table entries; but this did not necessarily alter the general direction of planetological research; and according to the LCTL historical data [4], [5] the same persons published different key data about Venusian and Martian atmospheres in 1932-33 on OTL and LCTL [28].

C)      How the large uncertainty in OTL areology was possible up to at least 1947 and for atmospheric pressure until 1962? And this is the point justifying to write an OTL study about LCTL Mars; the answer needs some space.

As for atmospheric composition the question was dealt with in Point 2): the measurement is difficult, because our atmosphere mimics the effect to be measured. Without very careful observation and data processing almost anything could be obtained.

For pressure, OTL data (Fig. 1) are rather disturbing, We like to believe in the objectivity of natural sciences. However, observe that there is a linguistic/social bridge between the objective facts and final statements. When Society asked about “Martian atmospheric pressure”, She clearly asked: “Is Life possible on Mars?” “Do terrifying Martians exist?” “Can we learn from our more advanced Martian brothers?” And Society demanded the answer; indeed, why astronomers are fed and pampered if they cannot answer even this very important and clearly astronomical question?

But observe that most measurements (and all early ones) utilised either dispersion or polarisation of reflected light. The highest observation point on Fig. 1 used the width of the terminator; standing on Mars’ surface that is simply the duration of the twilight, and is clearly proportional to overall dispersion, which, in turn, is clearly proportional to the density of the atmosphere. However, there is a prefactor highly dependent on atmospheric composition.

And this composition means a lot of data. Even in a pure gaseous atmosphere the dispersion in atmospheres of the same overall molecule density would (moderately) depend on the relative weights of O₂, CO₂ & N₂. But the dependence is even stronger on water (droplets & vapour) and dust. For dust quantity, chemical composition and characteristic size all count. And only the chemical composition could have guessed: SiO₂ with a lot of FeO/Fe₂O₃. Each researcher assumed a model atmosphere (I think, without dust) and it was fortunate if he even formulated the model; so the “pressures” varied. Anyway, otherwise the real OTL Martian atmosphere could not cause the same width as a one 25 times denser, measured 25 years earlier. Maybe similar data on Fig. 1 simply mean similar model atmospheres.

And all OTL data from terrestrial observations deviated upwards. I think this shows that the reserchers wanted to measure something. So they, unconsciously, “measured” some background. It is dangerous (but hardly unavoidable) to search for an answer when you are interested.

As for open water on Mars, there is a clean-cut, objective and simple method suggested by Fesenkov which immediately gave “no” [46]. The Sun is reflected on quiet surfaces of open water, and from a lake of Mars of 300 yards of diameter Sun would be reflected as a star of 9^th magnitude. No such phenomenon is observed, so no open water on (OTL) Mars.

Now let us apply this on LCTL Mars. A lake of 10 miles would reflect as Deneb, so the Northern Sea shold have been discovered already in XIXth century... Except that circumpolar seas could never reflect towards us, and LCTL Mars has only polar seas since both LCTL and OTL Marses have deep surfaces only at the Arctic, a higher one near to the South Pole, and at two isolated depressions Hellas & Argyre. Beware of simple methods giving final answers. Simple methods are good, but maybe the life is not simple. Talleyrand’s aphorism should sometimes be applied in natural sciences as well.

And note that until we did not know that the atmospheric pressure was too low for liquid water on OTL Mars, any flare from the tropical & moderate regions may have been interpreted as “reflection of sunbeams from a lake”; just as some ones were interpreted as reflections from icy slopes. For the first group see e.g. several flares observed in the Flagstaff Observatory; for the other see the famous hypothetical “Mitchell Mountains” at 76° S latitude, c. 285° longitude, not too far from the Mitchell Crater of recent nomenclature. So: when did Science determined OTL Mars to be unable to carry Life?

And now about the morale learnt from Ref. [5]. It tells us two things. First, that harder sciences can be used more widely if serious problems arise. Look: Physics & Chemistry are more effective on LCTL Mars than Biology & Sociology. In Ch. 1 Emperor Sajir can get extra water by ordering to apply a nuclear reactor of the EastBloc, and this single act increases the amount of available water for the Mountain by 10 %; something similar to the half-mythic deeds of the early ancestors. The Martian tembst is fantastic; but mere biology is not enough if the water is at great depths. And in Ch. 6 Martian organisation, fighting and biological engineering is efficient for finding and reaching the very gates of the vault where the remnants of Imperial culture are (including the Most Numinous One, anything it be), but then Martian tembst is stuck (because the lock is biological so could not survive 6000 years). Then archaeologist Wainman suggests to apply a quantity of plastique (if somebody does not remember: in OTL the standard terrorist explosive during the Algerian War in late 50’s and early 60’s) and the gate is no more.

And, second, Ref. [5] makes explicit that our recent situation on Earth is exceptional. There is a single humanity, and genetic variation within it is rather low.

Our nearest extant relatives are the chimps (both species) and D=0.62. Very probably they are not interfertile with us; and their intelligence is sufficiently lower than ours for that only very astute activists of human rights be active about chimp rights, albeit chimps are hominised/hominids in the sense that they belong to Genus Homo [22], [23]. On the other hand, interracial distances are not higher than D=0.04, more than an order of magnitude smaller than to the nearest extant relative.

The genetical homogeneity of extant (OTL) humanity is rather exceptional in Regnum Animalia and surely reflects at least one earlier bottleneck (see e.g. [24]); by other words serious extinctions did happen and we are descendants of a fortunate few, a compact population.

Various scenarios exist in the literature, but it seems that the present humanity is (totally or overwhelmingly) of African origin, with two Exodi: c. 70,000 years ago through Bab-el-Mandeb (then more or less dry because of the cooling caused by Volcano Toba) and c. 58,000 through Sinai. The first wave took mainly the southernmost shores, so now they may be found in Australia and some southern islands; but maybe the Ainus belong to this group too.

If so, then one expects the largest D between some Southern African people (say, Bushmen/!Kung) and some Australian Aborigine or New Guinean Highland populations. Indeed, their outward appearances differ; but the genetical difference is moderate.

But this situation is exceptional in the history of Humanity. 35,000 years ago Neanderthals coexisted with Anatomically Modern Humans in Europe (and entered Upper Palaeolithe at least in Southern France and the Carpathian Basin); and large-headed erectus descendants (still not too well known) coexisted on the Indonesian islands with proto-Australians. We are alone. But the last post-erecti died out on Java only bw. 30,000 and 20,000 BP. As for the European Neanderthals, the last known Neanderthal skeletons in Vindija Cave, Croatia and South of the Ebro, Spain & Portugal are from about 26,000 BC, and even then at least one Neanderthal tribe must have been extant; one from that tribe was one of the parents of the Lagar Velho Child in Portugal [51], millennia later.

On OTL, recently, we are alone; but this is an accident. And a last sentence about [5]: Si non è vero, è ben trovato.

APPENDIX A: HOMINISATION AND GENUS HOMO

The term “hominisation” is derived from Classical Latin “homo”=”man”, and the root is the same as in “humanus”. However, Darwinian & post-Darwinian anthropology uses the term without any meaning of “quality”. The Darwinian idea is simply as follows.

Man started amongst the Regnum Animalia, but gradually He became unique. (For feminist readers: I will not use “he or she” for 2 reasons. First, I am Uralic. Our languages work quite well without grammatical genders; my Sg3 personal pronoun does not indicate the gender of the person. With a minimal effort you can achieve the same; until that leave me in peace. And second: for Darwin it was quite natural to use the “he”. I think his “The Descent of Man” provoked a modern female to publish “The Descent of Woman”.) Biologically we are animals; but in some sense now we have evolved “above animals”, or at least to “the highest peak among them”. This process leading “to us” was the “hominisation”: the process of “finally having become Man from animals”. Since in Latin man is homo, so the process of Becoming Man is: hominisatio -onis (f), so hominisation in English.

Good. But in anthropology Homo is not the species name; our species name is “sapiens”. The process leading exactly us might be called “sapientisation”, which would mean outside of anthropology “becoming wise/rational”; but nobody draws the border of Becoming Man just under us, sapients. Every anthropologist considers Neanderthals already “hominised”.

Then the only definition conform with both Latin grammar and anthropology is that “hominisation” is the process leading the formation/separation of a new Genus Homo.

Goodman suggested a definition of Genus Homo wider than earlier [22]. The wider genus Homo includes the extant species H. sapiens, H. troglodytes and H. paniscus, so man, common chimp & bonobo. His arguments may or may not be accepted, but two facts are facts:

1)      The old Genus Pongo cannot be preserved. Either with blood serums or with distributions of alleles the result is that chimp is farther from gorilla than from us; and they all are far from orang, Pongo pygmaeus. So if somebody likes the idea of a Genus Pongo and a group Pongidae, he may classify into it the orang and its fossil ancestors; but not the gorilla and the chimps.

2)      Chimps are quite near to us. The classical article [29], using allele frequencies, gives D=0.62 for the distance. While this distance cannot be interpreted directly (small or big?), the normalisation was a long process in earlier years, with the intent that the distance for neighbour species be 1 in average. (The same idea that IQ 100 for the population average.) Now, D is <0.5 for populations (not for human ones; there D<0.04); and indeed from 1 upwards for species in the same genus. For the interesting class of sibling species, where zoologists originally did not see big differences but then it turned out that the two groups did not establish a common gene pool (hybridisation was impossible), 0.2<D<1.5. Surely, 2 sibling species are the beginning of speciation: divergent evolution started (because backcrossing is no more possible) but very recently (because the genetic difference has not yet been accumulated).

So we and chimps look like sibling species with the D=0.62. This is strange; but later somebody will find the hidden but important cue explaining the similarity. But you cannot classify 2 species with D=0.62 into disjoint genera, moreover into not even neighbour ones (in the usual taxonomy at least Genus Australopithecus separates Genus Homo (with us) and Genus Pongo (with the chimps); but maybe Genus Ardipithecus is in between as well.

On species level sapiens, troglodythes and paniscus seem sibling species for D. So it is not possible to squeeze lots of species between us and the Missing Link. Still, as serious suggestions, the branch leading to us contains the species names: anamensis, afarensis, africanus, habilis, ergaster, erectus (and only then sapiens). This is rather exaggerated.

Goodman’s idea is to put sapiens, troglodytes & paniscus, with all fossil forms after the last common ancestor of gorilla and human&chimp (seems to have been near to Sahelanthropus) into Genus Homo. Then, indeed, human-chimp D=0.62 becomes conform to the genus pattern. But, of course, the species number must be reduced too. That I did in Chapter 3; I feel, too moderately. (I have no arguments against [24], e.g., handling together erectus & sapiens. But the idea belonging to the same species with an erectus may provoke somebody on subjective grounds. I am a physicist, I am not embarrassed.)

But if chimps belong to Genus Homo, then “hominisation”, according to Latin grammar, must mean the process which led to either the chimps or us or both. So it started maybe practically with Morotopithecus some 17 My ago. Then Genus Pongo became detached c. 13 My ago, but the main line (??) continued. 6.5 My ago, near to sahelanthropus, gorillas left the Path of Ascendance, and afterwards everybody on that Path is Homo. Hominisation has reached its Final Goal.

If this brief narration seems a caricature, observe that it is dangerous to give moral/ethical meanings to scientific notions. We have goals, but natural processes (not-directed-developments) do not; so why to describe natural processes in a flowery language?

APPENDIX B: THE STATUS OF GARCILASO VEGA EL INCA

The famous historian was the son of a conquering Spanish hidalgo, follower of Pizarro, and an Inca “princess”, not too far cousin of Huascar & Atahualpa. (The family was on the side of the rightful heir Huascar, and several close relatives were killed in the mass murder organised by usurper Atahualpa for exterminating everybody having higher descent than him; Garcilaso’s mother, Palla Chimpu Occlo, was unavailable in far countryside, so survived). Observe that in the Inca Empire the ruling clan came from the sky, led by Sun God Viracocha.

Now, we definitely know the status of Garcilaso de la Vega from both sides; he wrote about [52]. For the Spaniards he was a hidalgo: his father was one, his mother was the rightful wife (she converted, and got the Christian & Castilian name Isabel Suárez Chimpu Occlo), and anyways she was a “princess” of the Indios. Indeed, Garcilaso spent some time in the Spanish court, later entered the Spanish Army, fought Moorish rebels in Andalusia, and became a Captain. This is the usual career of a (not too high-born but) true hidalgo, indeed.

Well, this was somewhat between facts and claims. According to Hispanian Spaniard officialdom young Garcilaso de la Vega, looking for his father’s patrimony was rather Gomez Suárez de Figueroa. (OK: his mother was Isabel Suárez Chimpu Occlo; but I am still trying to understand the “de Figueroa”). His father after years with Isabel Suárez &c. wedded Luisa Martel, while Isabel Suárez Chimpu Occlo chose Juan del Pedroche (and I do not try to understand this, after more than 4 centuries). But he went to Spain in 1560, took his father’s name in 1563, and inherited some wealth from a paternal uncle in 1570. So it took a trivial ten years to get his status.

There is a story in Hungary; but it may be legendary. According to this, Garcilaso de la Vega, the Inca, was interned for a few years in a castle in Csallóköz, Hungary (now Slovakia). Even if this were true, that still would be compatible with his hidalgo status. Let us see: Garcilaso is a participant of a (rather harmless) court plot, and so then he would be deported to the Csallóköz by the fraternal aid of the Austrian Habsburg ruler for the Spanish Habsburg; the Austrian Archduke, incidentally, was also the King of Hungary. Hidalgos can participate in court plots, and can get courteous handling: he was not put a prison cellar but interned to a faraway castle.

Anyway, Garcilaso writes that the Incas accepted him as a fullblood Inca. Namely, the mother was a fullblood Inca. (Theoretically half-blood Incas simply did not exist: mixing of heavenly and terrestrial blood was not honourable and the offspring was terrestrial in the best case.) Now, for the father. He came from elsewhere, with Pizarro. In early Conquest times these individuals were considered kin of Sun God Viracocha, so another group of Incas. Ergo baby Garcilaso was Inca on both sides.

APPENDIX C: POLYSYNTHETIC FEATURES IN LANGUAGES

Repeated statements [5] about Martian language (either extinct High Speech or Demotic), seldom illustrated, point to the inevitable conclusion that if discovered on Earth the language would be classified as polysynthetic. This is not a matter of genetic relations; isolating English and Afrikaans got the isolating  features in the 2^nd millennium, from moderately synthetic German.

Modern English translations of Livius or Cicero contain much more words than the Latin originals, even if in average the words are shorter. This phenomenon has a number of causes, but some of them are easy to formulate. Let us see the example of the simple verb “see”! It is “video” in Latin; the vocabulary form is Infinitive in English and PresAct Sg1 in Latin. (In Magyar it is “lát”, and the vocabulary form is PresAct Sg3, but it is the root as well.)

“Video” is “I see”. The mirror translation would be “Ego video”, but “ego” is generally unnecessary, because the ending of the verb unequivocally indicate the Sg1 actor. “Ego” is needed only if emphasis is present.

However “video” is seldom used in itself except in a declamation when a blind recaptures vision. Generally an object appears too, e.g. “video te” = “I see thee”. No Indo-European language, recent or extinct, can indicate the object on the verb; Basque does it, with some Caucasian and Northern American languages. These latter ones are sometimes called polysynthetic, since they are even more synthetic than Latin or Proto-Indo-European.

A natural idea is that polysynthetic languages are very precise, but survive only if the speakers are not disturbed too much. In migration, and especially if the language is being learnt repeatedly by outsiders, the structure is simplifying to synthetic and finally to isolating: Modern English took the last step when Norman French met Middle Anglo-Saxon: grammatical endings have been substituted by extra short words resulting in some Pidgin, simple for learning. The only counterexample for my knowledge is Modern Magyar: Magyars actively participated in the Migration between centuries 5 & 9, mixed intimately with r-Turks, then with Proto-Slovakians, while the grammar become more and more synthetic. For the present stage see [53]. So we do not yet understand something; but let us pass.

Modern Martian is the only language of LCTL Mars, and its precursors developed without concurrents in the last 30,000 years, at least. So the language could remain polysynthetic. See a definite example, even if in English, from [5], Ch. 2. After a battle with preying “birds” with rudimentary intellect Chief Coercive Teyud za-Zhalt becomes curious about the revolver of Jeremy Wainman. Wainman tells the Demotic equivalent of “explosive combustion of nitrogenous compounds driving a heavy metal slug through spiral stabilizing grooves on the inside of the barrel”, which is 20 words (and 135 characters, including spaces) in Modern English, but only 5 words in Demotic.

Now, I do not know if the above expression could be compressed into 5 words in any Terrestrial language, be either extinct or extant. But surely English is lax. In Magyar the mirror translation is “nitrogénvegyületek robbanása hajt nehézfémlövedéket stabilizáló járatokon át a csőben”; 10 words (and 93 characters, again including spaces).

Magyar is moderately polysynthetic. “Video te” is “I see thee” in English, but “látlak” in Magyar. “Látom” is “I see the 3^rd person definite object”; if it is 3^rd person, but indefinite, then “látok”. “Láthatnálak” is “I could/might see thee”. Basque is even more precise; but Basque is being assimilated in the Pyrenees, while Magyar is mainly a lowland language.

Beyond these observations the sporadic Martian formulae seem insufficient to get insight into the language; indeed in some cases terrestrial analogons may be strongly misleading. Let us see the simplest example: the structure of proper names. In [5] and in the epilogue of [4] two common types of names are dominant. Both contain two parts, with a particula between: the particula is either za (or sa; maybe “sa” is the original, or High Speech form, see Teyud za-Zhalt’s recitation of the Canal Inscription) or tu. Let us see examples for both:

sa/za:

Teyud za-Zhalt

Sajir sa-Tomond

Timrud sa-Rogol

Chinta sa-Rokis

Notaj sa-Soj

Vowin sa-Soj

Adwa sa-Soj

Heltaw sa-Veynau

Faran sa-Yaji

tu:

Zar-tu-Kan (a city)

Baid tu-Or

Sometimes the individuals are mentioned only be the first name (as Sajir, Vowin, Teyud or Baid) and the sa-Soj’s are close relatives. This would suggest that the second name is the family/lineage, or the father; and then sa/za, or tu, or both is the genitive particula, our “of”, “de”, “no”, “ap” &c. However...

In terrestrial languages simplifying from synthetic to isolating Genitive quite survives: recent Roumanian still keeps a flectating Genitive and even English has the Saxon Genitive. In the Neo-Latin evolution “de” appeared in Genitive formation only when the number of nominal cases had reduced to 2: Nominative vs. Accusative/Common. Also, Ugric languages, Khanty, Manyshi & Magyar show that Genitive constructions are not exactly agglutinative. So we cannot expect a prepositional Genitive in a polysynthetic language. Even synthetic ones apply an ending as Icelandic -son/dotir or Slavic -ich. And note the 2 of’s in Wainman’s explanation about the revolver: if particulas (either “za” or “tu”) were to appear, the long formula could not be mere 5 words in Demotic.

Now let us see the naming conventions of some terrestrial languages; of course amongst the thousands of extant languages and hundreds of documented extinct ones you may find anything.

Ancient Greek:

The guy had a given name, say Aristotelés. If there was necessary to distinguish between guys of the same given name, then the formula was either “son of X” but with no particula but with a synthetic Genitive, or “X of the community Y”, but again with a synthetic formula as e.g. Demetrios Phalereus, onetime dictator of Athens, previously disciple of Theophrastus, who was the chief disciple of Aristotelés Nichomachidés, or a synthetic formula going back to some old Genitive construction we just have seen in the full name of Aristotelés; and the Atreidés were the offspring of King Atreus. No genitive particula.

Latin:

Patrician males had 3 names, as e.g. Marcus Tullius Cicero. He had a brother called Quintus Tullius Cicero, so the given name was just the first; and no genitive, either particula or a synthetic one. It is told (but I have doubts) that plebeian males had only two names and any female only one. E.g. Cicero’s daughter is referred as Tullia. However see two quite old inscriptions from [54]:

L. Pulio(s) L. f.

Cesula Atilia dunu(m) dat Dian(a)e

where the bracketed terms are not in the inscriptions; but surely they were omitted as simple laxity. Now, the first inscription is one of the names of the duumviri from Praeneste; the second is some dedication from old Pisaurum (Umbria). So the important guy, who however is not a Roman patrician, had the full name Lucios Pullios Luci filios, and the important chick was Caesulla Atilia. Observe that there is no prepositional particula: filios = son is abbreviated as f. but after the genitive.

Middle Ages:

There is no norm. Neo-Latin communities may use de, da, d’ &c., mainly for noblepeople but not always. Germans use synthetic form as Gudmundsson or Gudmundsdothir. English people, if commoners, mainly use the given name with the profession, or maybe with the origin. So John, the smith → John Smith. The East Asian sphere (Japan, China, &c.) uses the opposite order: family/profession/provenance + given name. In Japan important people get a particula “no” in between; that is more or less a genitive construction: see Governor Kiyohara no Motosuke. However his daughter was simply Kiyohara Sei. (She was the famous Sei Shonagon, Sei, the minor councillor; this was a nickname given by her girl”friends” because she wrote with kanjis as a man and took herself rather seriously as an official. They were waiting ladies of the court of the Emperor.) The “no” can be regarded as a particula; but note the word order. In Medieval Hungary different constructions existed. E.g. you might use two given names; then the first was either that of the father or of the founder of the lineage and the second that of the son. E.g. my name, Béla Lukács, is of course Lukács Béla in Hungary; Lukács is originally the given name of Evangelist Luke, and Béla is the given name of 4 Hungarian kings, known elsewhere as Adalberts or Vojtechs. (The ancestor of my lineage was surely a Luke.) But it was also possible to use a particula, but not as an independent word “fi”, “fia”, “fy”, “ffy” (son); so famous biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy was simply Bertalanffy Lajos in Hungary, meaning that the founding ancestor of the lineage was Bertalan fia = son of Bartimeus. Also, you could put together a profession/property and a given name, so Fekete János is in mirror translation John (János) Black (Fekete) or Kovács János is John Smith (Kovács). Or you could use the origin/estate: so one of our great poets from 19^th century was Vörösmarty Mihály = Michael of Vörösmart. Noblemen got -y, other people -i; the pronunciation is the same. All 4 contructions are in use even recently.

Recent formulae:

1)      The majority of developed world follows the “European norms”, so given name (maybe 2) + family/lineage name. In some languages for nobles the second is preceeded by a particula (de, von, &c.) which is more or less an analytic Genitive; or the second name contains a -son/dótir (son/daughter of). Russians have 3 names: given name, given name of the father with a synthetic suffix, plus a family/lineage name.

2)      Icelanders have a given name in Nominative + the given name of the father with the suffix -son/dótir.

3)      East Asians including Hungarians (minority, but some 1.5 billion people) use the family name first and the given name second, both in Nominative or root form. So the daughter, Sei, of Kiyohara Motosuke is of course Kiyohara Sei (surely it was a practical joke a millennium ago that Sei is an alternative reading of the same kanji as Kiyo), in Mao Tse-Tung the family was Mao, and the given name was Tse-tung) and the tragically deceased South Vienamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem had a brother Ngo Dinh Nhu (the Dinh was a third name, not a particula), so his wife, contrary  to the American journals, was not Madame Nhu, but Madame Ngo, as she sometimes commented indeed. And exactly the same construction is used in Hungary: a family name + a given name, both in root forms.

4)      In official use the undeveloped nations mimic mainly the Western Europeans, mainly the English. In this way adapted in earlier times the Western constructions the Finnish Finns, the Altaic Turks and the Basques.

Martians were transplanted so early that the present linguistic constructs must be independent here and there. Still: no genitive particula with Indo-European word order and at least synthetic grammar anywhere on Earth. So: what is sa-/za-?

Of course we cannot know for sure. However the simplest idea still viable is that the correct meaning of sa-/za- is: “the child of”. It is surely not “son”: males and females equally use it. Obviously the word does not go with genitive now. However this is not a real problem. As I told, Kiyohara no Motosuke, the aristocrat in Xth century Japan would be registered now simply as Kiyohara Motosuke; and in Hungarian written documents during the last 800 years we see an evolution from Péter fia István (Stephen, son of Peter) through Péterfia István to recent Péterfi István. What is strange on LCTL Mars, is the word order.

REFERENCES

 [1]       H. Everett: Relative State Formulation of Quantum Mechanics. Rev. Mod. Phys. 29, 454 (1957)

 [2]       P. Anderson: Eutopia. In: H. Turtledove & M. H. Greenberg (eds.): The Best Alternate History Stories in the 20^th Century. Del Rey, New York, 2001

 [3]       Poul Anderson: The House of Sorrows. In: All One Universe. TOR, New York, 1997

 [4]       S. M. Stirling: The Sky People. TOR, New York, 2007

 [5]       S. M. Stirling: In the Courts of the Crimson Kings. TOR. New York, 2008; the first 6 Chapters can be found on the Net

 [6]       E. Flint: 1632. Baen Books, New York, 2001

 [7]       S. M. Stirling: Island in the Sea of Time. Roc, New York, 1998

 [8]       S. M. Stirling: Against the Tide of Years. Roc, New York, 1999

 [9]       S. M. Stirling: On the Oceans of Eternity. Roc, New York, 2000

[10]      S. M. Stirling: Blood Wolf. In: H. Turtledove & Noreen Doyle (eds.): The First Heroes. TOR, New York, 2004

[11]      S. M. Stirling: Dies the Fire. Roc, New York, 2005

[12]      S. M. Stirling: The Protector’s War. Roc, New York, 2006

[13]      S. M. Stirling: The Meeting at Corvallis. Roc, New York, 2006

[14]      S. M. Stirling: The Sunrise Lands. Roc, New York, 2007

[15]      S. M. Stirling: The Scourge of God. In preparation, a few Chapters can be found on the Net

[16]      Aristotle of Stageira: Opera omnia. Bekker N° 858^a14-17

[17]      E. S. Barghoorn & J. W. Schöpf: Microorganisms Three Billion Years Old from the Precambrian of South Africa. Science 152, 758 (1966)

[18]      J. S. Lewis & S. S. Barshay: Chemistry of Solar Material. In G. B. Field & A. G. W. Cameron (eds.): The Dusty Universe. Neale Watson Acad. Publ. New York, 1974

[19]      A. L. Hammond: The New Mars: Volcanism, Water and a Debate over Its History. Science 179, 4072 (1973)

[20]      E. Burgess: Mars Since the Dust Settled. New Scientist 53, 784 (1972)

[21]      T. Saheki: Some Important Martian Phenomena in 1958. The Strolling Astronomer 16, 11 (1962)

[22]      M. Goodman: Implications of Natural Selection in Shaping 99.4 % Nonsynonymous DNA Identity between Humans and Chimpanzees: Enlarging Genus Homo. PNAS 100, 7181 (2003)

[23]      M. Goodman: The Natural History of the Primates. Am. J. Human Genet, 64, 31 (1999)

[24]      J. Hawks, M. Wolpoff, K. Hunley &. S-H. Lee: Population Bottlenecks and Pleistocene Human Evolution. Molecular Biology & Evolution 17, 2 (2000)

[25]      L. Niven: The Ringworld Throne. Ballantine, New York, 1996

[26]      G. H. R. von Koenigswald: Die Geschichte des Menschen. Springer, Berlin-Göttingen-Heidelberg, 1960

[27]      H. V. Vallois: The Fontéchevade Fossil Man. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 7, 3 (1948)

[28]      B. Lukács: Stirling Studies 2: Lords of Creation Terraform Venus… http://www.rmki.kfki.hu/~lukacs/STIRL2.htm

[29]      Mary-Claire King & A. C. Wilson: Evolution at Two Levels in Humans and Chimpanzees. Science 188, 107 (1975)

[30]      W. Garstang: The Morphology of the Tunicata, and Its Bearing on the Phylogeny of the Chordata. Quart. J. Microsc. Sci. 72, 51 (1928)

[31]      D. I. Williamson: The Origins of Larvae. Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht, 2003

[32]      O. S. Card: Xenocide. Tor Books, New York, 1991

[33]      L. Bolk: Vergleichende Untersuchungen an einer Fötus von Gorilla und von Schimpanse. Zschr. f. Anat. u. Entw-Gesch. 81, 1 (1925)

[34]      L. Bolk: Das Problem der Menschwerdung. Fischer, Jena, 1926

[35]      A. L. Oppenheim: Ancient Mesopotamia. Portrait of a Dead Civilization. Revised edition completed by Erica Renner. University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1977

[36]      T. Jacobsen & R. M. Adams: Progressive Changes in Soil Salinity and Sedimentation Contributed to the Breakup of Past Civilisations. Science 128, 1251 (1958)

[37]      P. Lowell: Mars as the Abode of Life. MacMillan. New York, 1908

[38]      M. D. Menzel: The Atmosphere of Mars. Ap. J. 63, 48 (1926)

[39]      E. M. Antoniadi: La Planète Mars, 1659-1929. Hermann et Cie, Paris, 1930

[40]      K. Ya. Kondratev: Issledovaniya atmosfer Marsa i Venery. Gidrometeoizdat, Leningrad, 1970

[41]      A. Dollfus: Étude de la Planète Mars de 1954 à 1958. Ann. d’Astrophysique 28, 4 (1965)

[42]      G. P. de Vauculeurs: Mars. Sci. Amer. 188, 5 (1953)

[43]      R. E. Danielson & al.: Mars Observations from Stratoscope II. Astron. J. 69, 344 (1964)

[44]      L. D. Kaplan, G. Münch & H. Spinrad: An Analysis of the Spectrum of Mars. Ap. J. 139, 1 (1964)

[45]      R. B. Owen: The Martian Environment. NASA TM X-53167

[46]      Sz. Zerinváry: A Naprendszer élete. Művelt Nép, 1953

[47]      B. Lukács: Utazások térben, időben és téridőben. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1990.

[48]      W. S. Adams & Ch. St. John: An Attempt to Detect Water Vapor and Oxygen Lines in the Spectrum of Mars with the Registering Microphotometer. ApJ 43, 133 (1926)

[49]      ***: Mir priklyucheniy, Vol. 3. Detgiz, Moscow, 1957.

[50]      F. Ziegel: Van-e élet a Marson? Sciinta si Tecnica Tudományos-Fantasztikus Elbeszélések 80. (1957)

[51]      Cidália Duarte & al.: The Early Upper Paleolithic Human Skeleton f6rom the Abrigo de Lagar Velho (Portugal) and Modern Human Emergence in Iberia. PNAS 96, 7604 (1999)

[52]      Garcilaso de la Vega, el Inca: Comentarios de los Incas. A.F.A. Editores, Lima, 2004

[53]      B. Lukács: Stirling Studies 1: S. M. Stirling and the Agglutinative Languages. http://www.rmki.kfki.hu/~lukacs/STIRL1.htm

[54]      F. D. Allen: Remnants of Early Latin. Ginn & Heath, Boston, 1880